Dive Report 7.18.12 – A Bethy Scuba Birthday!

Marine Room, La Jolla, California

So three instructors, two divemasters, and four divemaster candidates walk into a bar…. Just kidding. At least about the bar. But we did walk into the ocean! That was the crew that rolled out for miss Bethy Scuba’s birthday dive! At the request of Bethy we hit up the Marine Room at 7:30 for a good old fashioned night dive! Topside, the waves were weird. High tide was rolling in and we had anything from 1 foot waves to 3 foot waves going in different directions. They had no power but they just kept rolling in. It was like a roller coaster ride on the swim out. We dropped to about 57 feet and started cruising along the wall. It was octopus central, they were EVERYWHERE. Being that octopus are my favorite sea creature, I was like a kid in a candy store. Viz was a good solid 10 feet and could still see the hazy lights of our other divers at least 20 feet away. A lot of particulate was in the water. Temps were 56 at depth and 59 in the shallows. Freaking finally a dive I wasn’t cursing the cold through my regulator! On the swim back in, Tim got buzzed by a leopard shark that swam over his shoulder! The shark had no fear of swimming through a group of nine divers! The exit was kind of hilarious as well. The tide was higher and rolling up to the Marine Room restaurant walls. In all honesty, the waves looked a lot scarier than they really were which I find happens a lot at the Marine room. It was still a roller coaster on the way in, even in only 6 feet of water. Nine diver heads bobbing up and down at different times and heights with the weird cross waves. I think we were putting on a show for the diners at the restaurant as they seemed to watch all wide eyed. I saw one woman run up to the window. I think she was worried we couldn’t get out of the water. 🙂 Now that I think about it, we all should have taken a bow after the exit…. 😀 And as an awesome surprise, Brent was grilling burgers for all of us for after the dive as we walk up to our cars!! Diving, food, and friends…. what a great way to spend a Wednesday night! Happy Birthday Bethy!

Max Depth: 58 feet
Temp:  56 degrees
Viz – 10 feet, maybe a really hazy 20 feet. Might have been those 1800 lumen Watershot lights (3 of our divers have them!)….. 😀
Current: none
Surge: very surgey in the shallows, light surge at depth
Bottom Time: 58 min

Eye Candy: Octopus of all sizes, gobys, sculpin, sarcastic fringeheads, bat ray, leopard shark, yellow crab, and pipe fish.

 

Octopus Free Falling off the Wall

Octopus Swimming